Wednesday, March 5, 2008

International Women's Day Protest and Peace Walk this Saturday

Hello, Friends and Sisters,

Saturday is International Women's Day.

I am organizing the International Women's Day Protest and Peace Walk against the T. Don Hutto prison that has incarcerated non-criminal, non-Mexican immigrant families seeking asylum since June 2006. Imprisoning innocent children and babies is wrong, and more people of Texas need to stand up and say so.

The peace walk will begin at 3:30 p.m.,Saturday, March 8, at the Heritage Park in downtown Taylor (directions below) and end across the street from the prison, about 1.25 miles away. Please assemble at Heritage Park at 3:00 p.m. We will rally peacefully across the street at the Hutto prison until just after sunset, when we will have a short candlelight vigil and prayer ceremony.

Activists from other groups who staged several protests at the Hutto prison will be joining us. We are all committed to a non-violent peace walk and rally.

There is a PBS documentary, "America's Family Prison," one can download from the above website. Scroll down and click on "watch short film on Hutto" and it loads immediately if you have high-speed internet.

Please watch the film, write a poem, draw a picture, or make a statement, put it on a posterboard with marker, and meet us there. We'll have water to stay hydrated and snacks. Bring an umbrella in case of rain.

As friends, and as Texas women, mothers, and girls, let's join together and make a stand against this injustice inflicted on women and children by our government. What better way to spend International Women's Day? Men and boys and their poems are welcome, too!

Free the Children Coalition, an ad hoc grass roots organization, as well as other local activists, will be present. Free the Families with Children behind the walls of Hutto prison.

Take I-35 N toward Waco. From Downtown Austin, about 17 miles.Take Exit 253, go right on US-79 N, go 15.4 miles into the center of Taylor. Heritage Park is on Main & 4th. The Walk is about 1.25 mile in distance straight down Main St. which converts into I-95. Take a right on Walnut (Martin Luther King Memorial Way) then a right again onto Welch, and you will be in front of T. D. Hutto Residential Center. The street address is 1001 Welch, Taylor, Texas.